Robots may take your jobs: new tech and the economy

The lifesize humanoid robot ‘RoboThespian’ interacts with fair visitors at the Engineered Arts Ltd stand of the 2014 CeBIT computer technology trade fair on March 11, 2014 in Hanover, central Germany. The robot, featured at the fair’s opening ceremony, is ‘a fully programmable interactive humanoid robot designed to inspire, communicate, interact and entertain’. Great Britain is partner country of the fair considered as the world’s biggest high-tech fair running from March 10 to 14, 2014. ; Credit: JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images

Machines are getting smarter. It’s an age of self-driving cars, robots that can beat master chess players and win Jeopardy, take customer service calls, and turn on the lights in your home from miles away.

Robots are taking our jobs, people are increasingly reliant on machines. But is that such a bad thing? MIT economist Erik Brynjolfsson says the “new machine age” is great for the economy — as long as people can learn to effectively coexist with technology.

How is technology changing the economy and job market? Will robots and machines change employment prospects? How? What role does big data play in the new machine age?

Guest:

Erik Brynjolfsson, Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Director of the MIT Center for Digital Business, co-author of The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technology